


You've been a friend of mine

by CWoodP



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (nothing explicit at all), Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Lucretia's a lesbian and Lup is straight, Platonic Relationships, Post-Canon, they're just friends in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 01:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15697218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CWoodP/pseuds/CWoodP
Summary: You've been a friend of mineFor such a long, long timeMade me laugh and seen me cryWhat would I do without youMy old, faithful friend?Even after everything, Lup still wants to be friends. Set about two years after the Day of Story and Song.





	You've been a friend of mine

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've posted on ao3, and probably the longest piece of fiction I've written in my life! TAZ, and especially Lucretia and Lup absolutely changed my life, and I hope I do them justice here. I'd love any kind of feedback.
> 
> I hope it's obvious, but the first section is from Lup's perspective, and the second from Lucretia's. Just to switch it up a bit. Maureen Miller is mentioned, but doesn't appear. 
> 
> The title/summary is a reference to the song "Friend of Mine" by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell.

Lucretia’s office is brighter than it was before. While the shelves are still lined in endless journals, they’re now illuminated not by the strange light of a voidfish’s tank, but by a window that Killian insisted she install when the Bureau underwent post-Hunger renovations. The window's blinds are half-closed, shining dappled beams onto a messy desk covered with seemingly endless paperwork. In turn, Lucretia covers the paperwork; she lies asleep in her chair, her head and arms resting exhausted on her work.

Lup isn’t surprised to find her like this — how many times had she come across Lucretia in the same position in the Starblaster’s kitchen? But Lucretia’s blue robes and the wrinkles lining her face always catch Lup off guard these days. Somehow, this older Lucretia seems stronger than the eighteen-year-old she knew. Wiser. More withdrawn, more guarded, even in her sleep.

But no less vulnerable to pranks.

So Lup does what she’s done so many times before: she walks quietly through Lucretia’s office and behind her chair. Taking a moment to make sure she was still asleep, Lup suddenly grabs Lucretia by the shoulders and whispers into her ear with a giggle. “Magnus!”

Lup sees Lucretia instinctively reach to her side for a staff that’s no longer there, moving quicker than a 50-year-old human body should allow, but, catching sight of her assailant, her anxious face breaks into her wide grin. She falls back into her chair, suddenly relaxed. Lup laughs and throws herself backwards into the chair across from Lucretia.

“To what do I owe the honour of your company?” Lucretia’s words ring with faux-formality that never fails to make Lup smile.

“Well, Madam Director, darling,” she says, putting her legs casually up on Lucretia’s desk, “ _you_ missed Magnus’s dinner last week.”

Lucretia closes her eyes and sighs, not smiling now. “And Magnus failed to mention that I called him and let him know I was busy?”

“No, no, he did. He was distraught, Luce.”

“Oh.” Lucretia’s voice is suddenly awkward. “That’s uh…”

“Not the worst thing you’ve done to him?” Lup says teasingly, walking the fine line between feeding Lucretia’s guilt and bringing much-needed humour to the situation. “Just kidding. Mostly. Seriously though… we’re worried about you.”

Lucretia looks down at her desk, avoiding Lup’s gaze. “Sorry.” The word that Lucretia’s been repeating over and over these past two years.

“What are you sorry about this time? It doesn’t hurt _me_ to be worried about you.”

“Oh.” Lucretia says, and is quiet. She looks defeated, almost physically smaller. As if she doesn’t have the words for a non-apologetic conversation. The room is silent and stale. Lup gazes absently at the windows. She’s had too much of this stillness.

“Well!” Lup says, forcefully cheerful. “I’m not here to make you feel guilty, Luce. I’m here for a date.”

Lucretia looks up, confused. “A date with…?”

Lup sighs. “With Steven the fucking Goldfish! Obviously, with you. A friend-date. Like the old days.”

“Oh.” Lucretia says again, and then shuffles around on her desk, looking for her day-planner. She finds it under Lup’s feet. Her voice grows slightly more authoritative and directorial as she flips through her calendar. “I’m pretty busy these days… I might have an hour after lunch on the 28th…”

“In three weeks? Holy shit, Luce!” Lup grabs the day-planner from Lucretia’s hands. “No, that won’t do.” She flips the pages back to this week’s calendar. As Lucretia protests, Lup snatches a quill from her desk and draws a thick line across the entry for tomorrow afternoon ( _1pm to 4pm—meeting with Lord Artemis Sterling. Bring case file 823E.)_ In much bigger letters, Lup writes under it: _all afternoon—spa date with Lup_. _Bring wine._ She slams the planner closed and lets it drop before pulling her feet off the desk and standing up.

“Tomorrow, twelve-thirty, back here. I’ll arrange transportation.” Lup says. As she walks out, she can see Lucretia slumped back against her chair, but with a slight smile on her face.

 

* * *

 

“You haven’t had a lay in five years?” Lup leans out of her bath towards Lucretia, who remains calmly seated in her own bath. A younger Lucretia would have blushed at Lup’s naked body; she actually had, the first time that Lup barged into her Starblaster cabin with her shirt off. But over a century later, and long after the final realization that Lup is annoyingly, unfathomably heterosexual, Lucretia barely notices it. 

“There aren’t exactly a lot of options out there for me,” Lucretia says, taking a sip of wine. “I’m not young, you know.”

“Bullshit!” Lup says, sitting herself back down in her mud bath with a huff. “Your body’s only a few years older than Barry’s, and he’s a studmuffin. I jumped on _that_ the moment I got this new body. And let me tell you, that night…" 

Lucretia’s first instinct is to groan, to stop Lup from once again telling her way too much about her sex life, and especially, to stop using the word _studmuffin_ to describe Barry J. Bluejeans. But something stops her — a pang on hearing Barry’s name. An involuntary shock of sadness that rises through her chest and blocks her throat. 

Her friend. 

Her brother.

Not her enemy anymore. She’s had dinner at their place. So why can’t she breathe?

“… and then I burned all his goddamn jeans so he’d fuck me again.” Lup finishes her story with a flourish. Lucretia forces a small, performative laugh.

“You and Barry have known each other for years, though,” Lucretia says, swallowing the sadness. “There aren’t many people out there who’ve… done what I’ve done. It’s a little hard to find commonalities with them.”

“You need a girl to have saved the world before you can fuck her, Luce? Won’t cum until she says she’s wiped her friends’ memories?”

Lucretia’s laugh is real this time. Lup was the only one who can make her crack up about the whole thing. Somehow, she makes it funny.

“I guess not. Still, it’s not easy.”

“Like hell it isn’t. Bet you’d have girls lining up for you if you ever stepped out of your office,” Lup says. Now _this_ makes Lucretia blush slightly. She reaches for the bottle to top up their glasses. In her bath, Lup is distractedly shooting fire balls into her bath and watching them fizzle out. It's probably against the spa’s rules. But then again, so is their last-minute appointment at Neverwinter’s finest spa, and so is traveling through a grim reaper’s rip in time to get to the spa. Lup hasn't ever cared about rules.

“So who was she?” Lup asks, looking up from the bath. “The last woman who graced Madam Director’s bed.”

“Oh.” Lucretia didn't expected the question. A decade of no one really knowing about her personal life left her out of practice for Lup’s prying. “It wasn’t anything serious.”

“Okay, so it definitely was,” Lup says. “Because the Lucretia I know has literally never had a casual fling in her life.”

Lup sees through her like a window. Lucretia stares down at the water. She can’t remember why she keeps secrets anymore.

“Her name was Maureen,” Lucretia says. “A… work friend.”

Lup grins. “Eating where you shit?”

Lucretia can’t resist the urge to laugh. “Lup, dear, you're fucking IPRE's head science officer.”

“Excuse you, I'm fucking my grim reaper coworker _husband_.” Lup is cackling, and for a moment it’s as if they’re back on the Starblaster, as if they aren’t talking about a man whose memories Lucretia stole, who was forced to plot against her like she was his enemy. The dissonance hits Lucretia like a wave, and as she stops laughing, she pulls her knees up to her chest in the mud bath. Her arms wrap around her legs, and suddenly, she’s aware of her body — too skinny, too wrinkled, too old for this.

“Why did you bring me here, Lup?”

Lup lies back in her bath, staring relaxed at the ceiling as if she can’t tell that Lucretia was serious. “What, you’d rather be with Nerdlord Sterling?”

“I don’t know.” It’s the truth. Her work for the Bureau of Benevolence is difficult, exhausting, and frequently lonely, but it’s basically similar to what she’s been doing for over a decade now. Fixing problems, making the world better. It’s not this torture of knowing everything was different. Of pretending that all problems can be fixed.

“That’s cold, Luce,” Lup teases. “If you treat all your dates this bad, it’s no wonder you can’t get laid.”

Lucretia can’t make herself laugh. Still balled up in her bath, she rests her head between her knees.

Lup sighs. “I really did miss you. I missed _this_ ” — she gestures vaguely around the room— “and I missed us. Do you remember that cycle where we spent a whole week pretending to be engaged? We got that free couple’s massage, that cake at the restaurant… Barry was so goddamn jealous but he wouldn't show it…" 

Lucretia doesn’t realize she’s crying until she feels the tears fall on her knees. She can’t make them stop. Her face buries itself deeper into her body as shame and embarrassment well up in her. She feels Lup’s warm hand on her back, calm and reassuring. Almost like she knew this was going to happen.

“Why?” Lucretia’s cracked voice betrays her tears. She can’t go on, but the unasked questions hang between them. Why are you doing this? Why don’t you hate me? Why can’t you let me alone? Do you enjoy seeing me like this?

“Luce, dear,” Lup says in a steady voice, far calmer than she should be. “I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it this way, but I’m the only other one who remembered during all those ten years. Barry spent half his time forgetting but I… I didn’t. I had ten long fucking years in an umbrella.”

Lucretia heaves a sob, but Lup continues, her hand circling Lucretia’s back. “I was alone. I was lonely. Did you know I’d never been lonely before? And then, even when Taako came… I was still alone. He didn’t know what I was. He didn’t know I existed.” Her hand pauses on the middle of Lucretia’s back. “Ten years alone. Even with the ones you love. No one to talk to. That’s what I went through and… that’s what you went through, too." 

Lucretia can’t think; she can only lean into Lup’s arm, which wraps around her as she cries. Lup’s voice is still quiet and calm. “I can’t give up on someone else who’s been through that. Not when I know what it’s like. And… maybe things are different now, okay. You’re all wrinkly and people call you Madam now. But I’m different too. I’m all calm and patient and shit.” She fakes a disgusted look, and Lucretia snorts through her tears. It’s true. Lup _has_ changed. Her recklessness has softened a little, leaving her steady, glowing resolve. She’s always been comforting, protective, and loving — fiercely and wildly loving — but never patient, never so self-reflective. The old Lup might have set fire to her journals for questioning why they were friends. 

Lucretia looks up from her knees, into Lup’s body that’s still holding hers. “I’m…” she started, and Lup cuts her off.

“If you say you’re sorry again, I will firebomb this entire spa, I swear.” Or maybe she hasn’t changed that much.

“Will you take a ‘thank you’ instead?” Lucretia says. 

“Only if it comes with another friend-date.” Lup disentangles her arm from around Lucretia’s back, and looks her square in the eyes. “And a promise not to miss anymore of Magnus’s events. Even if you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”

Lucretia opens her mouth to protest. To offer excuses — that she was busy, that she was tired, that she had a head cold. Or to say the truth — that no one but Magnus and Merle wanted her there anyways. That she made things difficult. But Lup’s eyes bore into her, daring her to say anything but yes. Lucretia finally lowers her gaze.

“I’ll be there.”

“Good,” Lup says, as if that solves the whole thing. She lies back into her bath. “And our date?”

Lucretia lets out a fake-exasperated sigh. “My schedule’s all yours, Lup.”

“Hah! It always was.” Lup closes her eyes, tilting her head back, comfortable.

Lucretia follows suit, settling into the bath. The warm water feels soothing on her tired limbs as she lets her body relax and her ears slip below the water line. Everything is quiet, and for the first time in a long while, she doesn’t feel sorry. 

 

* * *

 

“Wait — Maureen _Miller_? The jail-breaker of the eternal stockade? YOU FUCKED THE UNDEAD?”

“She wasn’t dead then, Lup, and you’ve been fucking a lich for decades.” 

**Author's Note:**

> My headcanon is that Lucretia and Maureen had really strong mutual feelings and got together a bunch of times while working on the moon base, but that Maureen eventually got tired of Lucretia 'holding back' her feelings and truth about her past. I think they broke up well before Maureen died, but there was definitely sadness there for a long time. 
> 
> I miiiight do a sequel to this because I still have a lot of Lup & Lucretia feelings.


End file.
